Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc will serve a 10-place grid penalty on the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, the second race of F1’s season.

Leclerc retired from third place within the closing phases of the Bahrain Grand Prix as a result of an issue together with his Ferrari’s management electronics.

Ferrari has confirmed Leclerc began that race on his second electronics management unit after the staff encountered a difficulty on the primary on the morning of the race, which means it was the alternative half which failed in the course of the grand prix.

With F1’s guidelines solely permitting two of that engine part per driver earlier than penalties are incurred, Leclerc will drop 10 locations from wherever he qualifies this weekend as he’ll transfer onto a 3rd unit.

“It’s one thing we now have by no means skilled prior to now and I hope now it’s underneath management,” Ferrari boss Fred Vasseur mentioned on Wednesday.

“However sadly we should take the penalty in Jeddah as a result of we solely have a pool of two ECUs for the season.”

After the race in Bahrain, Vasseur mentioned Ferrari needed to goal an enchancment in reliability as a precedence for the brand new season.

Vasseur, who turned Ferrari staff boss in the beginning of January, has additionally performed down stories of early stress between himself and CEO Benedetto Vigna – Italian media stories advised this was the case after the departure of head of auto efficiency David Sanchez final week.

“With Benedetto, we now have a relentless collaboration,” Vasseur mentioned. “It’s a superb set-up to date. Now we have all the time open discussions. He’s supportive on each single subject and I am unable to complain about this. It’s extra coming from gossip, however the collaboration with Benedetto is a really constructive one.”

Ferrari seems to be a reasonably distant to second to Crimson Bull when it comes to tempo at this level within the season, though the Saudi race would possibly favour the Italian staff’s strengths higher than Bahrain.